What’s the Difference Between a Conventional Fire Alarm System and an Addressable Fire Alarm System?
Usually, a conventional fire alarm system is less expensive and is used in smaller buildings. The biggest limitation to conventional fire alarm systems is that they can’t tell you specifically which alarm is going off – they can only tell you if a particular zone is under alarm. Of course, if your building is small, that information may be all you need.
Addressable fire alarm systems, on the other hand, are hooked up to an annunciator panel that can show you which specific devices are going off at any given time. This type of fire alarm system can be more expensive than a conventional fire alarm system, but the highly specific information it provides can be extremely valuable if you own a large-scale business or operate in a large facility. Better yet, if you are installing the fire alarm system on a campus or within a large facility you can network the annunciator panels together, so you can visually see the status of the entire fire alarm system.